Here is when I bought my first gun

[Straw Man]

306. I said we can't tell.

If they are military, they did not come from US gun shows and straw buyers.

The Mexican trace data is misleading, because not all seized guns are submitted to the US for trace: only those which are suspected to have come from the US civilian market. You cannot trace a full-auto military weapon on the US civilian market because it was never legally traded there. Therefore, there is no point in attempting such a trace.

The flow of weapons into the black market is huge, and I contend that governments are the major players, abetted by large-scale racketeers like Viktor Bout. You contend that the bulk of it is from private sales at gun shows and elsewhere. I don't think Viktor Bout got rich by trolling the gun shows for civilian AKs and ARs. The gun shows may be a source of these guns, but the bulk of the problem is actual military weaponry passing into the hands of gangsters and warlords.

I have no personal stake in proving this one way or another, but you have offered no compelling evidence. Closing the loophole may in fact be a good idea, although I'm not sure how much effect it would have, either domestically or internationally. Personally, I think straw buying is a much larger issue, and the solution is aggressive enforcement.